Television has been ubiquitous and was made even more widespread with the advent of satellite TV. Satellite TV made television available to homes that were too remote to receive standard over-the-air UHF/VHF signals. With the development of Ku band frequency satellites, the smaller antenna dish requirements led to an even greater proliferation of televisions. The smaller dish meant that the dish could be mounted on a vehicle, such as a recreational vehicle, camper or boat, and even transported to a remote camping site. The development of the low-noise block downconverter (LNB converter) advanced the remote TV market even further.
A satellite antenna is now standard equipment on RVs, boats and campers. However, modern RVers are not limited to only satellite TV to satisfy their entertainment needs. Most vehicles equipped with a television are capable of receiving not only satellite or dish TV signals, but also the legacy UHF/VHF television signals, as well as cable TV signals. RV parks are routinely equipped with cable TV hook ups. The mobile television viewer can select TV from a multitude of sources. However, this broad selection is not without a price. All of these signals converge to the same television(s) or converter box. Many of these signals can interfere with each other if received simultaneously, cancelling each other out and leaving the viewer with a blank screen. Cable TV and over-the-air TV frequently offer the same channels and channel frequencies. When a channel is selected by the viewer the chosen channel is fed by both the cable TV and over-the-air TV source, which disrupts the channel tuning and again results in a blank screen. This potential for signal conflict is aggravated by the ability to receive multiple signals from satellites directed to different regions of the sky.
At present, this potential for conflict is addressed by a separate hard-switch that selects either the cable or the over-the-air signal to be passed to the television(s). In some cases, the hard switch is somewhere within the vehicle, but typically remote from the television, such as in the glove box of an RV. In other cases, the hard switch is on the outside of the facility or vehicle. In either case, the need to manually change incoming TV signal with a hard switch ranges from an aggravation to a danger, such as when an elderly viewer must manage an outdoor switch.
There is a need to manage and distribute TV signals from this multitude of sources to the viewer's television(s) economically while maintaining signal integrity.